


Tell me we're dead (and I'll love you even more)

by yunhaiiro



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Angst and Tragedy, Implied/Referenced Suicide, Indeterminate timeline, M/M, Non-Graphic Violence, mind the tags too, mind the warning, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-27
Updated: 2018-07-27
Packaged: 2019-06-17 08:57:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 801
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15457764
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yunhaiiro/pseuds/yunhaiiro
Summary: You’re going to diein your best friend’s arms.And you play along because it’s funny, because it’s written down,you’ve memorized it,it’s all you know.― "Planet of Love",  Richard SikenSteve and Bucky are captured by HYDRA and imprisoned, with no chance of escape. They can only wait until they start torturing or experimenting on them. And there's only one thing they can do to avoid that, and it's not a good thing.





	Tell me we're dead (and I'll love you even more)

**Author's Note:**

> Title is also from Richard Siken's "Crush", from the poem "The Torn-Up Road". Thank you to [dfotw](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dfotw) for the idea, the beta, the title and the quote for the summary, and basically for my entire life. I'm sorry I made you cry.

Here they are, in a dark cell, a hole seemingly excavated directly on bedrock with walls made up of jagged edges. The exact location: Somewhere. No way to find out where exactly. Or how many days had passed.

Steve and Bucky have huddled up against one corner of the already tiny space, because it’s so cold their breath condenses in front of them.

“You know we’re not getting out of this one, right?” Bucky says, and Steve doesn’t answer.

Bucky gets out a knife he had managed to hold onto. Steve stares at it.

“I could…” Bucky swallows, clears his throat, and tries again. “I… Really,  _really_  don’t want them to do to you the same thing they did to me.”

Steve speaks up, voice also raspy.

“And you think I want that for you either?”

Bucky grits his teeth.

“It’s not about wanting. It’s going to happen. For both of us.”

Steve is silent again.

“But…”

Bucky rolls the knife in his hand, tests the blade against his thumb.

“We can end this before it starts.”

“So, suicide? Is that what you’re saying?” Steve voice raises without his permission.

“You wouldn’t have to do it. I can… I’ll do it. I can make it quick, hit the carotid artery. You would pass out and then bleed out in minutes.” He blurts the whole thing out as fast as he can, in a monotone clinical tone that sends shivers down his own spine.

Now Steve is the one who swallows, hard.

“And what about you?”

Bucky lets out a chuckle without mirth.

“You’re the one with an actual shot at being allowed into Heaven, Steve, not me. It hardly matters how  _I_  go.”

“… I can’t let you do this”, Steve answers, shaking his head.

Bucky grips the handle of the knife even harder, muscles on his back and down what he still has left of his other arm wound up tight. They took the vibranium arm long ago.

“After what I’ve done-”

“Bucky.”

“ _After what I’ve done_ ”, he continues, forcefully, spitting out each word. “After all the people I’ve killed…”

“You weren’t…”

“Steve”, the downright pleading in his voice shuts Steve right up. “Please. Let me do this. For you.”

Steve lets out a breath, vapor billowing in front of him. His eyes have closed.

“Let me make one last, finally right thing in the world.”

Steve opens his eyes, staring off into the opposite wall with a frown that would be deep-set if most of his face wasn’t already taken up by exhaustion.

“Is this really it?”, he asks into the cold air.

“You know what they’ll do to us”, Bucky insists, voice growing in urgency. “What they’ll do to  _you_. I refuse to stand by and do nothing while it happens.”

“How do you think  _I_  feel?!” Steve raises his voice once more, and there’s a wavering to it that stabs Bucky worse than a needle right through the center of his heart.

“After knowing what they already did to you? When I couldn’t do anything, when I didn’t even know you were… Alive…” Steve chokes back a sob, and Bucky feels tears prickling at the side of his eyes, not quite out yet.

“They won’t get to me either”, he mutters, in the softest voice possible, face even closer to Steve’s. “As soon as I’m sure you’re…” A second of silence. “I’ll be right behind you. Just like old times.”

Steve shakes his head once more, eyes shut painfully tight, his own tears threatening to overflow.

Bucky unfurls his fingers from the knife handle and lowers it gently onto the floor. He brings his hand up to Steve’s face and wipes his eyes with his thumb.

Steve opens them and takes a ragged breath.

“You better not make me wait so much this time, jerk.” He takes Bucky’s hand in his own and brings the knuckles down to his lips.

“Wouldn’t dream of it, punk.” He feels the faintest smile against his skin.

“You know what. Forget what I said before. I’m following you to Heaven anyways. Or Hell. Or wherever the fuck we end up in.”

“Also like old times.”

“Yes.”

Steve presses a final kiss to his hand, both a greeting and a farewell.

And a promise.

Their joined hands lower back down to grip the knife, Steve’s over Bucky’s. Bucky looks at them, then up at Steve’s face.

Steve nods this time.

Bucky takes a breath. Lets it out slowly. The vapor barely has time to form. He takes another one, releases it again, and it feels like this time it’s his soul, already leaving.

Steve’s blood is warm on his skin. It barely has time to cool off before it’s mixing with his own.

Heaven. Hell.    
_Wherever the fuck we end up in_.

Together.


End file.
